I have censored myself so that you don’t have to
By Hattie Butterworth
TW: Self-harm and addiction
I’ve dealt with a strange addiction and am desperate for lasting recovery. I’ve self-harmed. It’s a very disturbing, upsetting and intrusive addiction to suffer. It can’t be spoken- writing about it appears to take place within indie books and its visual depiction appears within documentaries about teen mental health. When I tell people about it I project their reaction. I decide that they’re disgusted and uncomfortable. I decide that they want me to stop speaking. Sometimes I decide they wish I wasn’t actually there at all.
Harm is definitely stigmatised, but the harmer will usually be the one to censor themselves first. We decide we are appalling, shameful and out of control. We think we are attention-seekers and know a lot of people will never quite understand. We do things in secret. We fight urges very frequently and don’t know how commitment to recovery quite feels.
Who knew that 2022 would be the year of palatable mental illness. Anxiety, depression, OCD and eating disorders find their own terror, but appear easier to talk about. Anxiety in particular is the new wellness buzz-word and I am frequently being invited to workshops teaching me how to spot the warning signs of anxiety and stress.
But I self-harm and there aren’t any workshops for that. People don’t organise seminars for classical musicians who harm, struggle with alcoholism or binge eat. Musicians with psychosis, personality disorders or bipolar aren’t easy to help so we forget they exist. How can we help people before we give their voices space to share, speak and exist freely? We can’t.
I censor myself so that I don’t get let down. I am so sure of being unpalatable that I can’t speak about my addiction easily or as freely as I speak about my OCD. It’s odd because self-harm is my coping mechanism and OCD is my disease. People see self-harm as a disease and OCD as a coping mechanism. I really don’t get that.
I am a person in recovery from a coping mechanism that scares people. I don’t like it that they freak out- or could- so I decide to be a freak and stay silent.
I have censored my addiction to self-harm and now I refuse to let it continue. I have harmed, but I commit to a loud recovery where my scars are censored by me last of all.
